The Indicator x The Student: “Rose Colored Boxes”
A sun-drenched morning leads to a quiet ritual of shared pastries in “Rose Colored Boxes,” where warmth lingers in scent and touch. In a poem originally published in the Fall 2024 edition of The Indicator, Ruth Zuraw ’25 captures the intimacy of summer’s golden haze.
Our morning-stretched shadows
graze, overlap on the pavement —
heat curling around calves
in gentle waves. But under the trees, it’s cool,
shaded, the air damp but kind — a summer hug.
The smell clings to my clothes: earthy, thick,
like wet blades crushed underfoot.
My sandals slap along well-trodden ground.
Inside, the warmth has shifted from petrichor
to a buttery phantom, a mouthfeel
and a memory. The glass case is smudged
with fingerprints I pretend
aren’t mine. Behind it, tarts sit with
broken rims alongside cakes with crystal edges.
The box is bright, Barbie pink, radiating
against the sun. My fingers clutch
the soft paper edges, gently guiding
fragments home. Sun love bakes sugar film
into the cardboard, oil stains seeping
in — like slow caramel glaze. Pastry
weight shifting in our hands.
Wrists dancing in slow sync — picking
apart the wreckage, turning what’s left
into bite-sized shreds. Spillikins fall
into the box, catching in its heavy creases —
a universe of last bites strewn across
our ritual sky.
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